George R. Packard
President, International University of Japan;
Director of the Reischauer Center for East Asian Studies at the School of Advanced International Studies (SAIS), Johns Hopkins University, President, U.S.-Japan Foundation
George R. Packard was dean of SAIS from 1979 to 1993 and is now director of the Edwin O. Reischauer Center for East Asian Studies as well as professor of East Asian studies at the school. He is also president of the International University of Japan. From 1965 to 1967, he was chief diplomatic correspondent for Newsweek. Prior to that, he served as special assistant to U.S. Ambassador to Japan Edwin O. Reischauer. In March of 1998, he was appointed president of the U.S.-Japan Foundation.
Packard Report - Feb. 2007
It is a sign of the growing frustration within the Bush Administration that the two-plus-two talks between Japan and the United States have been postponed. The White House is angry about Defense Minister Kyuma's position that the Iraq war was a mistake and that Japan should hold fast to its position on Futenma re-location in Okinawa.
The truth is that a vast majority of Americans agrees with Kyuma, and the White House knows it Bush is in a sorry state of denial, however, and therefore lashes out against the one major power besides the United Kingdom who went along with his folly in the Middle East.
Those who keep an eye on US-Japan relations are delighted with Kyuma's remark and hope that other Japanese leaders will join in the critical assessment of the war. Bush's "surge" in Iraq is almost certain to fail, and by July of tills year sentiment in the US for a total withdrawal, regardless of the consequences, may force the Congress to cut off funding for the war.
The fact that lifelong loyal Republicans like Senator John Warner of Virginia and Senator Chuck Hagel of Nebraska are leading the charge against the war indicates a serious rift within Bush's right wing base and the collapse of his Middle East Neo-Con strategy, Senator Hillary Clinton's belated attempt to align herself with anti-war forces shows how public opinion has shifted. Clinton voted for the bill that funded this war and has, until recently, refrained from calling for withdrawal. Now she is desperately trying to make up for this error of judgment and to prevent Senator Barack Obama from riding the anti-war sentiment to victory at the Democratic Party convention in the summer of 2008.
But there is a story this month about US-Japan relations that is quite remarkable, Actor/Director Clint Eastwood has produced a pair of films about the battle of Iwo Jima in February 1945: Flags of Our Fathers (in English) and Letters from Iwo Jima in Japanese. This approach, offering two films of the same battle from the perspective of individual soldiers from each side is unprecedented in this country. Furthermore, the production of Letters from Iwo Jima is the first portrayal in America of Japanese soldiers as human beings, "just like us,"
In the 62 years since the end of World War Two, the American image of Japanese military men has largely mirrored the American propaganda caricatures that were sponsored by the US Army during World War Two. John Dower's superb book, War without Mercy, (New York: Pantheon Books, 1986), describes how the US Army commissioned film-maker Frank Capra to produce a series of films that would galvanize American patriotism and overcome any lingering isolationism. One result was Know Your Enemy - that portrayed the Japanese people as devoid of individual identity.
Dower writes that the Japanese people were depicted as "an obedient mass with but a single mind: their collective will was fantastic and fanatic: "riddled with the ghosts of history and dead ancestors, taut with emotional tensions, and fired by blind and relentless nationalistic ambitions." The Japanese soldier, in this film, was "trained from birth to fight and die for his country, he was a disciplined, proud and able fighter on the battlefield - and also given to 'mad dog' orgies of brutality and atrocity."
When the war ended, it was never possible to wipe out these images completely. To some extent, they stuck in the American collective consciousness not just as depictions of Japanese soldiers, but of the entire population of Japan. When the revisionists like James Fallows and Karel Van Wolferen began to warn Americans of the "threat from Japan" in the trade frictions of the 1980's, they could draw on these older images to buttress their arguments.
What is remarkable about Eastwood's film, therefore, is his sympathetic treatment of Japanese soldiers - their love of home and family, and in some cases their decency even in the frenzy of battle. Ian Buruma, in the current edition of the New York Review, calls the film a masterpiece."
So finally, 66 years after Pearl Harbor, Americans are being offered a portrayal of Japanese citizens that is realistic and accurate. It is a first, and well worth celebrating. The film may well win several coveted awards and will be widely viewed. This, in my view, is a splendid achievement.
George R. Packard
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